Monday, October 14, 2013

Families Recovering From Domestic Violence and the Shutdown

Our pal Ginger Lee is a must-read post on how the federal government shutdown is effecting women and children trying to escape domestic violence. These people will have a problem feeding themselves thanks to the shutdown.

When they got some of the fabled ‘government cheese’ (yes, it was a real thing) it was like a damn celebration, because FOOD. They were happy to sleep on people’s floors as long as they knew there would be some damn food every day. Bread. Bread was amazing. There were a million things that could be done with bread.

And it went this way for a while, because back then victim ‘services’ for people trying to escape domestic violence situations didn’t exist. It took a court order from a judge to tell the abusive person to GTFO out the residence so the abused person & her children could stop sleeping on random floors. Once that happened, the ‘food assistance’ was only needed a few more months before that parent could buy the groceries with no ‘help’. Having a kitchen along with a place to sleep at night was a magical thing.

The situation for mothers and children during the Reagan years was very bad. Due to the shutdown these families will have a hard time feeding themselves. Ginger Lee correctly points out that if people think churches are going to come to the rescue then they are living in fantasy land.